


Deluge in a Paper Cup

by little_murmaider



Category: Metalocalypse (Cartoon)
Genre: Accidental Flirting, Drug Use, House Parties, M/M, On purpose make outs, Pre-Series, Preklok, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-17
Updated: 2018-08-17
Packaged: 2019-06-28 15:54:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15710433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/little_murmaider/pseuds/little_murmaider
Summary: Nathan takes a break from a terrible house party, and finds company in his solitude.





	Deluge in a Paper Cup

Danielle was coming to their house party, and Nathan was going to throw up.  
  
He thought Magnus had been fucking with him when he said he’d invited her. But apparently, _apparently,_ he bummed a cigarette off her at an Eviscerated Deer Carcass show, and because he never missed an opportunity to orchestrate someone else’s humiliation, he casually mentioned hey, he and the guys were having some people over Saturday, and maybe she’d want to drop by. And now Danielle ( _Danielle!!!!!)_ with the tongue ring and the Starscream tattoo and the big brown eyes that made Nathan want to put his head through a brick wall was going to be inside his _house_ where he _lived_ and the chances of her putting her mouth on his mouth was _not zero._  
  
So Nathan was nervous. And Nathan was very, very drunk.  
  
A haze hung chandelier-like over the party. The central air unit was busted, _again_ , so everyone was listless, dopey, coated in a film of sweat. Unintelligible rap music blared from tinny speakers. The kitchen erupted with a cry of triumph as someone sank their last shot in beer pong. Nathan sat on the couch, crushed between two groping couples, and watched the door. His guts churned. He was anxious that Danielle had not yet arrived, and anxious that she might never arrive, and anxious about what he would do if she did, and anxious about what he would do if she didn’t. And he was mad at her for not being there, and mad at himself for being mad at her, and mad at Magnus for inviting her in the first place, and mad at Pickles and Murderface and Skwisgaar for not being around to witness how mad he was, and mad at these slimy strangers who were fucking up his house, and mad at this beer that was skunked but he kept drinking anyway, and mad--  
  
He needed air.  
  
The couples flanking him must have been sitting closer than he realized, because when he stood the lot of them toppled to the ground in a slobbering heap, disgruntled but not letting it break their concentration. Abandoning his gross beer he shouldered his way to the door, only to find the landing overrun with _more_ scumbags, more idiots, more people he didn’t know mauling each other like horny, half-sedated jungle cats. _Ugh_ .  
  
The swampy humidity draped over him like a varsity jacket as he bruised down the steps connecting their floor to the ground level. Some burnout refused to move aside, filled as much space as his wiry body would allow, sucking on a joint and wheezing _Where ya headed, Tonto?_ , so he got an elbow to the throat. He flipped over the railing and crashed face-first to the asphalt below, a chorus of **_OOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHH_ ** s cushioning his landing. Nathan didn’t care, didn’t look back. Fuck that guy. He was fine. Probably.  
  
Cloistered behind a rusting chain-link fence was the apartment complex pool, used only by the resident geezers doing laps at sunrise. It was the ideal place to be alone, to mope, to recalibrate. Kicking through the scratchy dead grass, the dull thump of the party’s soundtrack pulsing in his temples, Nathan dropped his hand on the gate and was unpleasantly surprised to find it unlocked. All the surrounding lounge chairs, their plastic sagging and defeated after a lifetime of butts, were unoccupied. The lights within the pool were still on, casting everything in a mystic cerulean glow. And lying on the diving board, hair dangling just above the water’s glassy surface, was Skwisgaar.  
  
A subtle tip of his Solo cup in Nathan’s direction was the only acknowledgement his presence received. Dark specks of the springboard glinted like frost beneath his lazing form. Nathan wanted to sit, but there was nowhere to sit. He thought of pulling over one of the chairs, decided against the effort, and plopped down on the ground at the pool’s edge.  
  
“This party sucks,” he said.  
  
“Ja.”  
  
“I don’t even know half those assholes.”  
  
“Me neithers.” He took a delicate sip from his cup. “Most of dems ams Magnus’s douchebag friends. Alls of dems yellings, makings a mess, gettings all dere fluids everywheres. I just, you knows, couldn’ts deals, you knows? Gots overwhelmeds?” He rubbed at his eyes with his middle finger. “I needs-ded to gets out. Just euuughhhhhh resets.”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
The smudge of trees behind the complex thrummed with insects. Nathan glanced at Skwisgaar, then mirrored his skyward gaze. Overhead was a sooty nothing, slashed with the orange crescent of the moon.  
  
“That waitress I wanna hook up with might come,” Nathan said, spoken like a man who did not often imagine what it would be like to kiss the asymmetrical beauty mark on her decolletage. “Desiree, I think? Is her name?"  
  
Skwisgaar hummed.  
  
“She’s pretty hot, I guess. And smart, I think. She’s studying criminal justice at FSU, or something, she wants to investigate murders, maybe, I don’t know, I’m not, like, keeping tabs on her, or anything.”  
  
“Dat’s cools,” he said, interest waning.  
  
“I think.” He blinked. “I think I’m dumb. And if she knows how dumb I am she won't want to hook up.”  
  
He watched a drowning spider clamber helpless and doomed against the side of the pool, then go limp.   
  
“Hey.”  
  
“Eh?”  
  
“You’re good at getting girls to fuck you.”  
  
His head lolled toward him, smiling crookedly, one eye closed. “My reputations eeeehhhhhhhhhhh ams nots unearneds.”  
  
“Every time I’ve done stuff with a lady, she’s told me she wanted to do stuff, and then we did.” Nathan would not have been this forthright without booze, but he was more beer than man now, so he pressed on. “How. How do you know. She wants to do stuff. If she doesn’t tell you.”  
  
Skwisgaar rolled onto his side. “Does you wants a real answer?”  
  
Nathan pondered for a long, long moment. Bit his lip. Furrowed his brow. Then, he said, “Yes.”  
  
Skwisgaar pushed into a sitting position, anchoring his feet to the cement, and patted the available space before him. Nathan lugged himself up and straddled the diving board, laying his forearms on the grinding surface.  
  
“So whens she gets heres, ask if she wants a drinks. Whens she says yeahs, takes her wif yous so she cans watch yous pour its.” He prodded him in the stomach. “ _Don’t_ disappear and comes back wif a cups of anyt’ings and tells her to drinks it. Dat’s importants. Moidaface keeps forgettings dat parts and den yells at mes when goirls throw dere drinks at hims.”  
  
“Okay, that makes sense.”  
  
“So whens you gives her de drinks,” he lifted his cup and with the other hand gestured at Nathan to open his, “you gots to bes _gentles_ .”  
  
He pressed the cup into the flat of Nathan’s palm, and as he drew back dragged his fingers slow and deliberate across Nathan’s knuckles. Nathan inhaled. Took a swig.  
  
“ _Don’ts_ underestimates de importance of _bah-dee-lan-guanges_ .” Skwisgaar shimmied. “If she ams angled towards yous, it’s a good signs. But de next tricks ams gettings her to talks a lots about somet’ings you don’ts haves to talks backs abouts. What won’ts she nots shut ups abouts?”  
  
Nathan could think of a dozen topics–her father, her pet lizard, her skull collection–but not a single believable explanation as to how he obtained any of that information. The crackly foam of Skwisgaar’s drink sparked along his upper lip.  
  
“Uhhhhhhh she hates her manager Todd?”  
  
“ **_Fuck Todds_ ** .” He scooted forward. “Todd sucks. She’s mads. She's rantings. Maybes she starts to touch yous,” he laid a hand on Nathan’s knee, “to emphasize how much he sucks.”  
  
Nathan swallowed. “He sucks a lot.”  
  
“He sucks _so much_ .” He walked his fingers up Nathan’s thigh and curved around his hip. “You cans touch hers, at dis points. If you t’inks she’d be goods wif dats.”  
  
Nathan placed his hand on top of Skwisgaar’s, reached his thumb around and rubbed at the soft underside of his wrist.  
  
“Dat’s good,” Skwisgaar breathed. “So nows de times to moves in closer.”  
  
“Closer how?”  
  
Skwisgaar shifted. Their chests touched.  
  
“Likes _dis_.” He leaned in and swiped the foamy mustache off Nathan’s face, let his fingertips linger at the corner of his mouth. His hand laid heavy across his cheek.  
  
“And then what?”  
  
Skwisgaar’s eyes flicked down, back up.  
  
“Ands...”  
  
Nathan thought suddenly of high school, of the girls he tried to kiss, whose terrible cackles haunted him still, _oh my_ ** _God_** _can you_ ** _believe_** _that moron thought I wanted him?_ But when he met Skwisgaar’s gaze he saw none of that. Saw only understanding. Desire. Promise.  
  
“Heyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy **_BIG MAN_**.”  
  
Magnus’s high-pitched call startled both of them. Skwisgaar jumped so high he would have tumbled into the pool, had Nathan not seized him by the elbows, laid him flat and hard onto the diving board, one leg steadying them on the ground, the other knee driving lightly into Skwisgaar’s crotch.  
  
“That girl you’re tryna ffffffuuuuuu **CCCKKKK** is here!” Magnus wailed, and Nathan heard Pickles’s hitching laughter on the tail end of it. “So you should _get back_ here! Now!”  
  
Nathan looked down at Skwisgaar, sprawled beneath him, wide eyed and luminescent as dead leaves and bugs floated passed in the water under him, a modern-day Ophelia.  
  
“I gotta go make out with that lady,” he said.  
  
“So goes,” Skwisgaar replied.  
  
And he could have, but it was so much _work_ , to get up and go inside and find Danielle and lay the ground work to get to where he wanted to be, especially when there was a warm, willing mouth right in front of him. So he rocked forward, released Skwisgaar’s arms, pressed a tentative kiss to his lips without thinking about it too much. And when Skwisgaar kissed him back, hands exploring lazy and tender along his spine, gripping at his shoulders to tug him closer, closer, closer still, he stopped thinking at all.

 


End file.
